


Five Times Aranea Felt Good About Helping Others, and One Time Someone Felt Good About Helping Her

by kanadka



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bondage, Character study through porn, Cunnilingus, F/F, F/M, Femdom, Impact Play, Outdoor Sex, Spanking, World of Ruin, cock stepping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-20 22:49:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21289445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanadka/pseuds/kanadka
Summary: When the sun never rises, you get by with a little help from your friends.
Relationships: Aranea Highwind/Cor Leonis, Aranea Highwind/Ignis Scientia, Cindy Aurum/Aranea Highwind, Gladiolus Amicitia/Aranea Highwind, Iris Amicitia/Aranea Highwind, Prompto Argentum & Aranea Highwind
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20
Collections: Femdom Exchange 2019





	Five Times Aranea Felt Good About Helping Others, and One Time Someone Felt Good About Helping Her

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VenatorNoctis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VenatorNoctis/gifts).

> I've tried (and hopefully succeeded?) to be vague about whether this is blind!Ignis or Episode: Ignis V2 compliant in the World of Ruin. Reader's choice!

It's been a really shitty month, honestly. Daemons have been pulling back; Lestallum's had some chance to breathe. That's good for the city.

Less good for the hunters. Less to do. Have to go further afield to catch prey. It'd be nice sometimes, Aranea thinks, if they could just hunt the buggers to the farthest reaches of Eos, and eliminate the threat altogether. Hunt them _all_ down. How many can there be? But her intel from the retinue has suggested that'll never be the case. Not while _pretty boy_'s still in the Crystal, anyway.

She's not the only hunter who's been feeling the heat. Some of them work in teams, and those teams have broken up for the moment. It seems that in peacetime - or what passes for it - hunters don't get along. Aranea had never honestly expected that to be the case for the little Lucian boy band, but Amicitia, Scientia, and Argentum don't work as well when Noctis isn't around as lead singer. That's a little troublesome, a little saddening. There's worse out there than those three, though - Accendo and Turbatum get along like a house on fire when they're back to back fighting off demons, but they can't even be in the same room as one another in Lestallum. If restraining orders still existed, they'd probably get them. So Aranea figures, it's probably common enough.

She wouldn't really know - she doesn't really get along with most people in Lestallum, or out of it. Mostly, she works alone. Mostly, she's happy.

Amicitia - _Gladio_, because they _have_ worked together - doesn't talk much ordinarily beyond a cursory conversation. At least not to her. He'll bark orders in the dark of Duscae, if their paths happen to cross. And that's not often.

_Are you up for tonight?_ he texts.

Well. Gladio must be back, his signal only really works in Lestallum. Outside, the automatic relay towers set up around Eos barely transmit. The daemons haven't bothered with them, and they run on auxiliary geothermal power, so they're good 'til Bahamut decides he's done with the universe. Gladio should probably get a new phone - Aranea considers trading for one. It'd be a nice touch and Gladio doesn't spoil himself. He blushes nice when she treats him well, though he blushes even nicer when she treats him rough.

She texts back, _yeah whatever_, flush with anticipation.

The old hotel on Sulum Square is a known hunter haunt. The other floors haven't really been touched in years, and might be too in disrepair to trust your footing. Not long after the darkness fell, the basement was converted to a dance hall - one that everybody patronises. The first floor, though, nobody ever hears a thing.

Things Gladio doesn't say: hi, hello, how've you been, say your hair looks nice, anything about why he texted and why he's here, even though Aranea isn't stupid and can read it all over his face (didn't succeed in getting anything hunted, feel like it was a waste of gas, feels like he's a waste of space, he's not pulling his weight).

Things he _does_ say:

"Please," he groans. He's on his hands and knees, struggling to sit up from where she kicked his legs out from under him. When he does sit up, his thighs are spread and he's begging with his eyes and mouth, too. "Please, fuck, give it to me, I need it."

Aranea backhands him hard. The rush thrills through her like a live wire, and the tingle in her hand where she strikes him becomes a pulse between her legs. 

Gladio gets real mouthy when they get together. Slapping him into silence doesn't work - he likes it too much. Even now his head snaps to the right with the force of her blow and his cock jumps in his pants but he starts talking more. "Yeah," he grunts, "like that, just like that."

"Don't tell me how to do my job," Aranea retorts. She lifts her hand again just to watch him full-body flinch.

If Aranea really wanted him to shut up, she'd have to gag him - which she's resorted to before. Watching him whine and soak the rag in his mouth with his drool is a lot of fun. But there's a neediness in his actions tonight. He must've found something to pick a fight with out there, he must've used a potion, she guesses. One potion he uses is a potion taken from the main hunter stock, and Gladio is used to just grinning and bearing it and showing the scars. So now he wants a little bit of punishment for it. God, he's so easy to read. Dumbass, she thinks, just use the damn potion, people care about you.

Aranea walks around him slowly. The din of the dance hall below them is muffled enough that Gladio can no doubt hear everything of her boots - the slow _click-click, click-click_ of her heels as she taps, heel-toe, heel-toe, a drawled sneer of an advance. Finally she stands in front of him, one hip cocked, her feet shoulders' breadth apart.

She doesn't even have to suggest anything and he's already on the ground, kissing the toe of her boot.

"No-o, you _don't_," she says, sing-song and taunting, almost patronising. She takes the boot and worms it into his mouth, opening his jaw, as she draws her foot up slowly, and he has to follow or choke. His mouth split wide, leaking spit, she tilts him back until he's sat up again. Then she removes her boot and kicks out with her heel at his shoulder.

He goes sprawling back. His hands aren't even bound, fuck, but he keeps them connected at the small of his back as though they are, as though he wishes they were. If he weren't laid back before her, she'd consider binding them with his own jacket.

Actually...

She leans forward, her foot extended, and catches the sharp, batwing heel of her boot on the lapel of his coat, then drags it across his shoulder until it exposes him. He's not wearing an undershirt. She does the same to the other shoulder, and then - with him prone before her, his jacket slipped down his biceps - she nudges his thighs open wider with two careless, almost offhand kicks.

His cock practically pulses in his pants. There's a wet stain there already. She looks at it mildly, like it's a sprite she's considering squashing. "Fuck, yes," he mutters. "_More_."

An idea takes form.

Aranea brings her foot down - she's always had incredible, dancer-like balance, and being on one foot for so long has not bothered her - and drags the heel down the line of his crotch, along his pants. Not so softly he can't feel it. Hard enough he knows she _means_ it. "Do it," he chants under his breath. "Do it, fuck, Astrals _fuck me_, do it."

"You've such a dirty mouth on you," says Aranea. She balances on the heel and brings the sole of her boot down in a slow grind, directly between his legs, on his balls.

She shifts her weight, pressing down, squeezing, then relents and he sobs with - relief? anxiety? Maybe both. She does it again, and again, and again, until he's started fucking himself in his jeans, shifting up for the contact, rubbing himself on the underside of her shoe.

He could probably come like this, but he might feel worse about it. Aranea makes the decision that he's spent enough time feeling guilty.

She slams her foot down between his legs, her ankle warm where it rests against him. "You can frot yourself the rest of the way," she says, and it's barely a minute before he does, stiffening against her, staining the front of his jeans. His moans are drowned out by the pulse thrum of the beat below them, and by the time the music slows - the end of this particular song - he's regained his composure.

"Gods," he says, panting, "thanks. That's - oh, _thanks_. You're so - thanks, I just - you're really -"

"Don't ruin the afterglow," says Aranea.

\--

Ignis is the next person to contact her. She kind of expected Prompto first; he's always the one who stays in touch best, who would have met up with Gladio to know Aranea was even back in town.

_I've made a double batch of that stewed sirloin roast you like. Would you have dinner?_ he texts. Typical formal Ignis. He always treats her like a lady, and it makes her skin crawl a bit. But it's not personal - that's just Ignis' way - and Aranea's not saying no to a hot meal she didn't cook. And Ignis is _kind_ of a dream in the kitchen. He's kind of a dream in bed, too.

Dinner is outstanding, as usual. He mentions there's some kind of meat - thing - reduction - whatever. Aranea's not really paying attention. It's stupid delicious. Prompto probably would love leftovers but if he wants them he should ask for them himself, Aranea is not a fucking _go-between_.

(Aranea is kind of a go-between, in a manner of speaking. Just not for the talking that the boys maybe should be doing but aren't. That's not her deal.)

He makes polite conversation and Aranea makes more or less the right replies while gazing openly at his pretty mouth. Ignis eats very daintily, perfect posture and utensil use - he has very fastidious manners. Aranea, meanwhile, is purposefully eating with her fork in the wrong position, which Ignis probably knows - he doesn't even have to see her to tell - and he hasn't even twitched. Aw. It's cute what he'll ignore for her.

"That was great," she says at the end. It's more than great - it's a good meal under a solid roof in a dry apartment, which Ignis keeps through the respect of the other refugees in Lestallum not bothering someone who hunts as much as he does, given everything.

Ignis shrugs. "What I wouldn't give for a higher yield on the hydroponics," he says. "I suppose we ought to consider ourselves lucky there are enough beasts out there who eat mosses and dried grass. But - ah, Miss Aranea. I didn't invite you here for dialogue."

"No, I think you invited me here for _dessert_," Aranea says. She grins. Even though the plates are clean, the look Ignis gives her is distinctly hungry.

They usually wind up in the bedroom, because Ignis likes to take his time, and Aranea likes indulging him. He eats her out like he's been dying for it - his sharp nose digs into her belly and his mouth is wide, wide open, his tongue hot, pressing, savouring. "You love this," Aranea taunts, "you can't even hide it, can you."

Ignis sighs. She can feel the huffed exhalation of breath, cold against her wet flesh. And she can feel his scars, he's pressing his face so hard against her.

Aranea flicks him on the forehead and he cringes. "No. Back up a bit," she says. "Little to the left. You know where to be." He obeys her _instantly_ and that's half the fun, half the joy of being with Ignis - how responsive he is, and how happy he is to serve. How _well_ he serves. "That's it, mmh, right there. Keep it like that." Ignis moans every time she speaks. He likes being praised. He likes knowing he's doing right. (It's probably because he feels he didn't do right, what with his pretty boy prince stuck in the Crystal.)

He falters at one point, so Aranea grabs him by the hair and works her fingers through the gel. It's not as neat as it used to be, they've had to improvise - nobody's exactly manufacturing hairgel these days - and the locks break free easily for her to tangle her hand in. She tugs him back into place roughly. "Right _there_, I said," she growls.

Ignis nods against her and caresses her thigh softly, reverently.

"Don't move from that spot," she warns. Her voice softens into teasing. "_Serve_, Ignis. Go on."

He follows her orders assiduously and doesn't move a muscle, though it must be a bit uncomfortable the way he's arched over her, so that his long legs can remain on the bed. He'd probably rather cramp up than complain. Then he swirls his tongue around her clit and sucks at it and that's - well, that's not _exactly_ what she'd instructed him to do, but she's a moaning mess so she'll accept it. Good initiative, she thinks. Counts for extra credit.

"Can I," he moans, "will you allow me to, I need," but doesn't move his body, or his mouth, or his tongue, so Aranea feels every part of his voice on her clit.

"Make you a deal," she gasps, "as long as you keep talking, sure. You can."

His voice grows progressively shakier but he obeys her. "Yes - y-yes, Aranea, whatever - _a-ah_ \- whatever you like, tell me, serve you - _oh_ -"

She's shaking as she comes and it lasts and lasts and lasts somehow, and he doesn't let up, murmuring mostly gibberish moans into her. She has to tap him twice on the shoulder for him to stop. He'd probably do this all night if she let him. But Aranea doesn't stay the night.

Ignis leans up, still licking his lips. His trousers are undone, slung over his hips, and he's come, messily, over the bedspread and smeared on his belly. "Well done," she approves.

"Thank you," he replies, and bows, standing on formality like she's a queen.

They dress in mostly-silence. He walks her to the door, which is something he wants more than she does. "If you still have some of that roast-thing, y'know," she says, on her way out, "Prompto's always hungry. Kid's a bottomless pit. I'm just saying."

After a long, silent spell, Ignis murmurs, "Very well." Unsaid is the, _For you, Miss Aranea, certainly_, that she knows is there.

She lifts a shoulder. "Whatever," she says. "Anyway. See ya 'round, Specs."

(Okay, so it is kind of her deal. So sue her, these kids grow on you.)

\--

Cor and Aranea are a lot alike. Survivors, no matter what. They call Cor 'the Immortal' and they were probably right - he'll be here long after everyone is gone. A strong will serves you well against the daemons. It even serves you well in a world where you've lost everything - no Lucis, no sunlight. But it seems it doesn't do anything else for him, because he'll drop it like a hot coal for her the second she asks.

"You really will do anything I want, won't you," she murmurs.

"Three fucking _hours_," says Cor.

Aranea's returned from errands. Errands she didn't really have to do, but favours to people in Lestallum help grease the wheels. And, in a weird sort of way, this is a favour to Cor, too. Cor doesn't like pain nearly as much as Gladio does, but he does like being snarky, and being put in his place. Call it a complex, of sorts. To be judged and found lacking.

She's stuffed one of those vibrating bullets up his ass, the lead tied around his upper thigh. He's hard and wet for it. He's probably been that way all evening. She trails her gloved fingertip down him, from glans to base, and he jerks his hips but it's fruitless, there isn't much he can do about it except shake and thrust into the air, because his wrists are bound above his head and his legs are strapped at the ankle, midway up the exposed rebar in this crumbling hovel of his, held hoisted up like medical stirrups. This way he makes a nice chair for her.

"You must be pretty sore by now," says Aranea. "I could let you out, if you think you've earned it. If you think you've had enough."

She leans down. The front spike of her helm - Iris isn't the only one who likes it - grazes the side of his jaw. "But other people can take more. So. Won't you take a little more?" Cor shakes his head - part of the game - and Aranea smiles. "Tell you what," she says, removing only her pants. Her shirt, helm, surcoat, boots, everything else stays on. "Let's see how long you last."

Cor does a _lot_ of planning for people in Lestallum, and sometimes it's just nice to have someone else plan. Aranea, meanwhile, likes planning. She likes it a lot, and Cor lets her do all of it.

She swings her leg over Cor's waist to straddle him, and sinks down slowly onto his cock.

Then she turns the device in his ass up higher. He groans loud and nearly loses it before he gets his hips under control. She can hear the buzzing straight from his slutty ass and he twitches inside her, trying to get more purchase on thrusting up, or trying to twist away from the overstimulation, or both, as he works himself into her.

Oh, that's good, she thinks. Nice and deep, little movements, just for her. She rocks back to have him rub up against where she wants it best, and positions herself with her arms against his calves, reclining like she's in a nice warm bath.

Then she stops moving.

"Aw, come _on_," Cor whines. He loves arguing with her, even when he knows he won't win. Even when he doesn't really _want_ to win.

"Don't you dare," Aranea warns.

She can feel his balls pressed up against her ass - firm and drawn. He's close. She gives him thirty full seconds, held like that, to take the edge off. Then she says, "Well? What are you waiting for?"

"Can barely move like this," he says, gasping.

"You can move enough for _me_," she replies. "You do the work. From this position," she explains, "you can move just barely enough. In and out, maybe an inch or two at most. So _you_ probably won't come." Aranea fixes him with a glare. "That is, you'd better not come like that," she says. "Make me come. And then you can, too. If you come first, you get three more hours of me doing errands with that toy in your ass."

"The damned Infernian isn't this hot," mutters Cor, looking up at her through heavy-lidded eyes.

"Hey. It's your choice," says Aranea, offering it with false sweetness.

Cor grumbles like he didn't want exactly this. (He can't completely hide a delighted grin, but he does a pretty good job.) Then he starts to rock back and forth, in and out of her, a slow, cautious drag. "Yeah," she sighs, feeling tingly and warm. She doesn't even move for him, watching as he clenches his eyes shut and grits his teeth to stave off orgasm, as he rubs himself inside her and works her closer to hers. She digs her nails gently into the flesh of his calves. "Yeah, that's _nice_."

\--

See, money isn't nearly as useful as stuff you could trade for - Lestallum is an eternal-day city of maybe two million. People with skills are always valued, and which skills are valued most can be a tricky business to suss out.

It doesn't work perfectly. There's been flareups. (The Lucian refugees had considered establishing a police-service once to try and take care of any flareups. The Niff refugees, who knew what a police state looked like, absolutely revolted, and there were more of them than there were of the Insomnians.) But there's nobody around to control an economy and enforce a value on gil, so a loaf of bread can cost you ten thousand gil, or it can cost you two chocobo eggs, or it can cost you darning someone's socks. Aranea makes most of her living doing errands for people - hunting this, fetching that.

The services she performs for people like Gladio, Ignis, and Cor aren't transactions in the same sense, but they definitely serve a purpose - all parties walk away with a little less anger.

Lestallum works like quid pro quo, like barter system, which means something that needs done urgently is very valuable, and value can change from month to month. The only way around that, which Aranea can see, is making friends. Because you could trade favours for items, but friends will do you favours for free. Social sweetening to survive. To get ahead. 

Which is why Aranea has had to be a little less strident than she's used to being, and why the Lestallum grocery stores aren't exactly the same as they used to be. Aranea patronises the same one, every time she needs anything. Usually, Mrs Quercio has everything she needs, and when she doesn't, Aranea goes without. Sometimes it's more important to keep a good rapport with people than it is to get a new hairbrush.

But that _does_ mean Aranea's habits make her highly predictable.

"Ms Highwind! Fancy meeting you here, what a coincidence!"

Iris Amicitia is Gladio's little sister, and has become a reputable huntress in her own right. Runs in the family, Aranea figures. So does the absolute transparency.

"Don't shit me, kid," says Aranea. "There's no coincidence here."

"Well," says Iris. She blushes bright red. "I thought, maybe, since you're in town. I could, uh. Sharpen your spear for you." She lowers her voice. "If you know what I mean. I-I've been thinking about you."

Aranea's about to ask whether there's anybody else who can, someone her own age, someone she could actually fall in love with. "N-not just about you!" Iris clarifies. "About, um. Your, your helm. Maybe?" Aranea remembers about why she goes to Quercio's all the time. Iris is pretty much doing the exact same thing.

Which is how they find themselves in the basement of Quercio's. Aranea's seated on top of a crate of tinned meat, and Iris is a warm weight in her lap, thighs spread wide, without panties, riding two of Aranea's fingers and moaning through the gag. (This time, Aranea absolutely insists. At least for the first orgasm.) "You do like this, don't you," Aranea drawls. "You always come back for more."

Iris leans in, whimpering through the gag, and nuzzles the thick iron bars on Aranea's mask. Her shirt zips up the front, and Aranea's undone it to her belly, to expose and frame her tits. Small little things. Gods, to have small tits, they're so sensitive. Aranea reaches up and twists a nipple hard and Iris shrieks behind the gag, bouncing down on Aranea and positively soaking her hand. A thumb at her clit - just resting there, just a reminder - and Iris is gone, shaking apart, trembling like a leaf so hard she falls over backwards. 

Aranea deftly puts an arm around her waist to catch her before she goes ass over teakettle.

Iris is still panting when Aranea takes off the gag. She takes the two fingers that were inside her and mindlessly sucks them clean, and watching her do that strikes Aranea with a certain selfish pride. "Ohh, _thanks,_ Ms Highwind," mumbles Iris desperately around her fingers, "thanks so much, you're so good to me - lemme be good to you too, please, Ms Highwind? I'll give you my tongue, my fingers, my heart, whatever you want, you can have it."

"Let's start with the tongue and work our way up, hm?" drawls Aranea, and tries not to feel warmed. What a kid Iris is sometimes. Her _heart _\- god, spare me, thinks Aranea, that's just a little too close. And yet Iris goes out there like any other huntress and brings down coeurls, at her size. And that _is_ something.

\--

Cindy is usually in need of diesel for some project or another. There's enough of it out there trapped in gas stations all over Eos and it makes its way to Lestallum unfailingly, if eventually. She's been working on biofuels but it's hard when there's no light. But you can trade the fuel, and Cindy will pretty much give you anything you want.

Aranea needs a new ride. Cindy says she's got one in mind, but it's a bit of a hike.

Bit of a hike is right. They're outside of Lestallum now, where the floodlights don't reach, and it's dangerous for Cindy here. Aranea's senses are good, and she can tell there's no daemons for miles around, but that doesn't make the quiet dark less unsettling. This might be why Cindy wanted her to come with her.

Well. It's half the reason, anyway. Cindy leads her to a nice ride, a motorbike that would've been only two years old when the darkness fell. A quick tuneup and they can drive it back.

"I'll need something to work by," says Cindy sweetly.

"So?" says Aranea. "You got a headlight."

"I meant more like... incentive," Cindy says. She bats her eyelashes. "Pretty please."

Out where it's dark, the eternal night air is cool, and it should be quiet here - no daemons, Aranea keeps an ear out for them. Tricky business because Cindy - bent over the motorbike, with her tiny shorts around her ankles, bare-assed but for her thong, which hides nothing from Aranea, and which Aranea has pulled aside to reveal even more of her - is _not_ quiet at all.

"Do it again, please, honey," whines Cindy.

"God, you're even brattier than Iris," says Aranea. She's actually a little ticked. This is dangerous business - she expected this kind of nonsense from Gladio, not from Cindy, who she fully expects to know better. But being out in the open air and the darkness, where predators lurk, isn't where Cindy should be. Cindy's an engineer, not a huntress. But... it is a quiet night. There's been no daemons out here. If this is something Cindy wants, now is a good time to try it out, while there's certainly nothing dangerous around, and she's with someone she can trust to be capable.

She hits her harder and Cindy pushes herself into the motorbike with the force of it. "Yeah," sobs Cindy, "hit me, I've been so _bad_, sugar."

"Too goddamn right," says Aranea. She hits her again, a full-palm strike against Cindy's left asscheek, then another against the right, then a third a little lower, just skirting the edge of her labia. (That one probably stings and Cindy's sniffly with the force of it. Well, _good_.) There's too little light to tell but she can feel the warmth of Cindy's skin against her hand when she presses the inside of her wrist against Cindy to check the temperature.

"I can't believe you," Aranea continues. She brings her hand down hard on Cindy's ass, lower again, and Cindy yelps. Just the sound makes Aranea spread her legs wider. She's so wet she's soaking through her own underwear, and Cindy is certainly wet enough that Aranea can feel her - a strand of it pulls away when she brings her hand up for another strike. "Iris is what, twenty-two? And better behaved than you."

"Yeah," chants Cindy, "god, yeah. Please." She wiggles her ass, arching her back up. "Can I have your fingers now? I'm so close."

"Oh, you _wish_," says Aranea. "What makes you think you deserve that?" She only wishes she had something more direct to give Cindy. A switch, or a cane.

"Please!" Cindy gasps. She gropes out with her hand and catches Aranea between the legs and strokes down reverently. Aranea drifts closer, lets herself ride Cindy's hand for a second or two. Then she spanks her again - Cindy's grip becomes lax, distracted. 

Aranea grabs Cindy by the wrist and wrenches her arm backwards, pinning her wrist to the small of her back. She slaps her again, hard - this one resounds nicely, and she can feel the jiggle of warm cheek against her hand. She teeters towards orgasm. "You like it outside," says Aranea, "where people could see. That's pretty naughty of you." It reeks of sex around here. It's kind of glorious.

"You won't even be able to sit down and drive back to Lestallum with an ass this sore," gasps Aranea.

She slaps her again. Once on the cheek, once lower, almost on the thigh. "More," grunts Cindy. "I gotta - just a bit more, c'mon now -"

Another firm slap - this time lower, on the mound, where her clit's poking out, and Cindy stills.

"You want it, you ask nicely," threatens Aranea. "You don't tell me what to do."

"Please!" shrieks Cindy. "Please, please, please!"

Aranea ignores her and spanks her again on the ass, then leans down to murmur in her ear.

"No reason we couldn't do this in Lestallum. I could bend you over and finger you at the dance hall on the busiest night," says Aranea. "All I'd have to do is pull aside these tiny little shorts and slip inside." She spanks her hard once more and Cindy jolts forward, trembling. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Just like this." Then she lines up her fingers at Cindy's hole and shoves them in hard.

Cindy shatters and screams.

"Yeah, yeah, y'could," Cindy says as she's sobbing. She twists around and drops to her knees between Aranea's legs, spread wide. She's pawing at the crotch of Aranea's pants. "I'd like that, I'd like that an awful lot," she says. 

"Mm. Enough about what you'd like. _I'd_ like your tongue now," says Aranea. She unfastens her trousers, yanks them down enough, and cups Cindy by the back of the head to direct her in.

Cindy leans in and licks, a furious desperate rhythm that has Aranea slouched back, her hips forward, fucking Cindy's face and riding her mouth in seconds. _So good_, she thinks, so good. Cindy's tongue circles around her clit - good, yes, Aranea will remember that and be nicer next time with the spanking.

When she moves to an up-down, targeted motion, Aranea grabs her by the hair to hold her in place. "Like that, so good for me," she says. She moves with Cindy, fucking herself with Cindy's tongue. Hot, wet, velvet smooth - "Yeah - yeah like that," Aranea's whispering. "You wanted it out here, didn't you."

Cindy moans an _mm-hmm_.

"It's - hng, it's dangerous out here." Weak-kneed, Aranea leans on the motorbike for support.

"Mm-hmm," says Cindy again. She pulls off to kiss the inside of Aranea's thigh. "But you'll protect me, won't you?"

Aranea grabs her by the ponytail and rides her face. "Don't - don't be so - presumptuous - argh- ah, _yes!_" She comes hard like that, with Cindy's face jammed hard into her crotch and Cindy on the ground, soaking her tiny panties, moaning for more.

"I _am_ a little sorry," admits Cindy, a little sheepish, once Aranea lets her up. "But you _would_ protect me. I know that. I trust you." She hikes her jeans back the swell of her ass with a minor grimace.

Luckily, it's too dark to see the blush on Aranea's cheeks. "Fix the damn bike, and let's get out of here, already," she says.

\--

Aranea knocks on Prompto's door but doesn't really bother for an answer before she's already barging in. Prompto doesn't lock it, and even if he did, she'd kick the door in. Prompto worries her in a way that Gladio and Ignis don't. But right now he seems in a pretty upbeat mood. He's on the dingy yellow armchair, playing a game on his phone. "'Sup," he calls out.

"Hey, Blondie." She sits down, slouching into the grey couch. At least she thinks it's grey. It smells kinda like mould and she should probably have put down a towel or something, but the towels ... also smell like mould. Standards have gotten very low since the sun never came up. "God, what a nightmare month."

A few sad beeps from Prompto's phone. "Dammit," he mutters. Finally he takes his eyes off the game. "Oh, hey. Where'd you come from?"

Aranea frowns. "You just greeted- anyway. Few nights ago. When'd you get back?"

"About a week." He tosses his phone over to her. "There's not much to hunt out there. Felt like I was mostly taking pictures."

She unlocks his phone and scrolls through the snaps. He's never asked why she knows his passcode. Probably for the best. "Nice one of the Aramusha," she says.

"Oh, yeah! That one was just before he tried to spear me," Prompto says. "I shot him in the face."

"Good job," Aranea replies.

She keeps scrolling, and Prompto is mostly silent. "Oh, hey - I cooked," he adds, with all the emphasis of a first grader proud of his macaroni art.

"Is it cup noodles," she asks.

"It's not," he says. "But... you might ... wish that it was?"

Aranea rolls her eyes. "Sometimes I cannot believe you can grow a beard," she says. "Don't worry, I'm not hungry."

They don't talk about work. They do talk about how Lestallum's simultaneously the largest place they know and the most claustrophobic. They talk about the hunters they like and gossip about the ones they don't. They talk about how sometimes it's nice to be in the darkness to get out from the eerie eternal light of Lestallum.

They talk about deeper matters, too. Aranea stays mute, but Prompto spills his guts. Sometimes he admits, like he does today, that he's scared Noctis will never leave the Crystal and they'll just be doing this for the rest of their goddamn lives, and he's not sure he has the ability to spend that much time in a world with this much misery, even if sometimes people are pretty nice about it, because they're all in this together and those who didn't fit in well mostly wandered away and were never heard from again (another horror, when you think about it, and Aranea doesn't).

Aranea isn't always sure what to say. Prompto's usually pretty chipper. But when he's not, he's got good reason to be down. Once, she told him to buck up and get over it and deal with it later. But now, it's _later_. And it's time to deal with it. She decides on, "Oh, c'mere, you brat," and pats the spot on the couch next to her.

Once Prompto's dozing, drooling into the couch cushion, she says, "I'm scared too, kiddo."

More than errands, or hunting, or trading, what a lot of people in Lestallum need is comfort, in all its various forms. As Prompto curls into her side - best little brother I never had, she thinks - she realises she may in fact be one of them.


End file.
